Neighborhood Assn. launches new website opposing hotel on 1st St. East

The North of the Mission Neighborhood Association in the City of Sonoma has launched a new website in opposition to a proposed 32-room hotel and housing project on First Street East, across from Arnold Field. Stretching to Second Street East, across from The Patch, the proposed project application will come before Sonoma’s Planning Commission this spring, though the date of that hearing has yet to be announced.

The subject of two previous Planning Commission Study Sessions, the project is proposed on two parcels which will be combined; the larger parcel is zoned Mixed-Use, and was the home to Peterson Mechanical for many years. The smaller parcel facing on Second Street East is zoned Mixed-Use and presently houses four residences and an office space. Both properties are adjacent to Vintage House and the parking lot serving it.

First Street East has been the subject development controversy over the years. A lawsuit brought by one neighbor in 1996 objecting to the zoning of the Peterson property to Mixed-Use resulted in assurances by the City of Sonoma that any development of that property would not alter the existing residential character of the area. Subsequently adopted Design Guidelines for that area specified that light commercial use would be limited in scale, such as a “bed and breakfast”.

In a letter to the Planning Commission, Association President Karen Skooglund argues that the project as proposed is inappropriate for that neighborhood. Referring to the evolution of the project, the letter states: “In truth, very little has changed.  A few pieces on the Monopoly board have been rearranged, but we are still left with an over-sized, commercial, fundamental transformation of one of the City’s most unique neighborhoods:  one that combines relatively affordable homes, apartments, condos, an historic cheese factory, a horse farm, ball fields…and a cemetery, if we can account for that.”

This First Street East project is now the second hotel project proposed for the area of Downtown Sonoma. The other project, a 62-room hotel and restaurant on Napa Street, is already before the Planning Commission. A hearing on the final EIR of that project was rescheduled (no date set yet) after a group of citizens discovered serious flaws in the traffic study calculations. A third property, the vacant Truck and Auto lot at MacArthur Street, has been proposed as hotel site in the past, but those plans appear to be in limbo and the disposition of that parcel is unclear at this time.

The increase of hotel proposals comes on the heels of the razor-thin failure of Measure B a few years ago, which would have limited the size of new hotels to 25 rooms until the city’s occupancy rate reached 80%. Ironically, that occupancy rate is now in the high 70’s.

For more information, contact

[email protected]
or

Sheila O’Neill
707.501.8856
[email protected]